Land of the Big Puts 'Too Big' To the Test

By ALISON LEIGH COWAN

Published: March 13, 2006

Discretion is prized here in Connecticut's richest town, so for Greenwich to be having a public row about what lies at the end of one man's private drive is a bit unusual.

On North Street, after all, there is a much-ogled replica of Louis XV's Petit Trianon. On Crown Lane, there is the Georgian colossus owned by Steven A. Cohen, a hedge fund manager, and his wife, Alexandra. Behind its castle walls lie a beauty salon, art gallery, theater, and ice rink tended by its own Zamboni. On Doubling Road, William R. Berkley, the insurance mogul, recently won permission to put an antique carousel in his 58-acre backyard.

But now a proposed single-family home that could soon overlook the town's polo grounds has people in a lather, and not because neighbors are unaccustomed to homes with mind-boggling amenities or price tags.

This one, they say, is just too big -- even for Greenwich.

With plans calling for almost 39,000 square feet in the main building, plus an 1,165-square-foot pool house, the home that Joseph M. Jacobs, a 53-year-old hedge fund manager, wants to build for his family on 11 acres in the Conyers Farm section of town would be twice the size of Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch and would top the Greenwich mansion occupied by Leona Helmsley, the self-appointed queen of a real estate empire. Whether the Jacobses' homestead turns out to be the town's largest depends on how one measures. (Be glad you're not the tax assessor.) Do finished basements count? What about guest cottages, barns and gazebos? Should ice rinks and twenty-car garages count as much as other structures?

Still, the unbuilt house has come under fire from neighbors whose own homes easily surpass the 10,000-square-foot mark. They say there is insufficient foliage to screen the mansion from the road. Another complaint is that the planned facade stretches about 220 feet from end to end.

''It's just a huge departure,'' said George James, a next-door neighbor who told the town planning and zoning commission in December that the new palazzo-style home would undercut the ''rural character'' he has worked hard to preserve in the century-old farmhouse he owns near the Jacobses' property line. Mr. James also owns a much newer 20,000-square-foot mansion behind the farmhouse, when enclosed areas are counted.

Barry Hawkins, the general counsel for the Conyers Farm homeowners' association, which is made up of the development's residents, told town officials at that meeting that other homeowners also had problems with the proposal. ''It is too large, it is too in-your-face, it is too visible,'' he said.

In a phone interview on Friday, Mr. Jacobs said he was mystified at how his house had become an issue. ''I'm a perfectly decent, menschy guy,'' he said. ''The whole thing makes no sense. I think that what this is about is simply that people are used to looking at that lot, and they'd rather not have a house built on it.''

Roger J. Pearson, a former first selectman of Greenwich, offered some support for the house. In a letter to town officials, he expressed hope that the furor was not built on ''manufactured issues to suit the purposes of neighbors who upon completion of their own amply sized residences become instant conservationists.''

Not all home improvements and construction projects in Greenwich end up this way. Neighbors did not object, for instance, when Mr. Berkley sought to install an antique carousel in his backyard in central Greenwich.

Mr. Cohen, whose 31,600 square feet of living space in the north part of Greenwich is one of the largest homes on the tax rolls, has sparred occasionally with neighbors, but backed down last fall when they objected to his plan to encase his tennis court in a bubble for year-round use.

But the Jacobses have inspired fierce opposition.

Town records show the couple downsized four kitchens and two laundries that town officials deemed excessive and redesigned a drainage system. The couple had a harder time showing that the proposed septic system could handle an 11-bedroom main house and secondary structures.

They notified Ms. Fox's office on Feb. 13 that they were temporarily withdrawing their request for a special permit, required when a planned structure exceeds 150,000 cubic feet, as theirs does, to address the concerns of town officials. ''I do intend to refile,'' Mr. Jacobs said on Friday.

One thing the couple has not done so far is shrink the plans for the house, which now includes his-and-her dressing suites; a five-car garage; a home theater; a staff lounge; and most spectacularly, a 3,600-square-foot indoor gym, complete with its own squash court, golf simulator, massage room, beauty parlor and indoor pool, with views of a sunken garden.

The current design may make it hard for them to win the consent they need from the Conyers Farm homeowners association, which represents members of the 1,500-acre development, built on a former dairy farm that straddles the Connecticut-New York border. Conyers Farm has long had extensive guidelines, backed up by restrictions in the landowners' deeds, aimed at maintaining the development's country look. Lots in Conyers Farm must be 10 acres or more. Glimpses of homes and stables are all that should be visible from the road.